I do think pures should be ahead, yes. The hybrids could have a slight (noticeable) advantage in mobility, suitability etc.

Even if a Warlock would be designed to do 5-8% more damage in a stand still fight than a Priest, the Spriest could catch up in a real encounter, with his superior move/cast abilities, or being able to stand in the fire for an extra 3 seconds because of great defensive cooldowns etc. (obviously, it's pretty much the opposite right now).

Seriously, Warlock healing aswell as absorbs are way too overpowered from what I have seen

Our absorbs are getting nerfed substantially. The actual healing you see on the meters is likely mostly Soul Link, which is just redistribution of damage between ourselves and our minions, it's not actually healing.

Also, those heals and absorbs only apply to ourselves and our minions. Our ability to heal others is entirely reliant on other players' ability to use their healthstone (which we don't need to be in the actual encounter to provide).

Thing is, none of the classes are pure DPS ... they can all heal, so they are all hybrids. Just look at Warlocks ... insane OP DPS, healing through the roof, soloing is lol easy, since their pets can tank ... I mean, they're more of a hybrid than a Priest or a Shaman, but they still top the DPS ... it's BS.

I feel pure should do 5% more damage than a hybrid. A pure should have no ability to heal, not even self heal, aside from bandages and pots. Hybrid should all have a heal ability that can target other. It's the trade off.

Not even self heal? I heal and shield the shit out of myself on my warlock. I can even rez just like my druid, only thing I can't do is save someone else's ass... unless they had taken a healthstone from the well I dropped before the pull.

There should be no difference between hybrid dps and pure dps because when it comes right down to it one group should not be sidelined by groups because pure pulls 5% more, and thats exactly what would happen in heroic scenarios and raid groups.

My question is if all classes should be able to do the same amount of DPS, regardless of if they have multiple roles or not.
Is it Blizzards intention that pure DPS classes should top the meters, as that is their only role?

I have seen people saying on these forums that Blizzard said that "class x doesnt belong in the top dps-wise" and so on, and im just wondering if theres any truth to that?

absolutely. there should be some advantage to a pure dps,heal, or even tank class if they ever put one out in performing their limited function.

i honestly feel that it would be a much better world if ALL classes had a niche instead of the homogenized mass of what we are slowly devolving to.

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Originally Posted by Pascal

Not even self heal? I heal and shield the shit out of myself on my warlock. I can even rez just like my druid, only thing I can't do is save someone else's ass... unless they had taken a healthstone from the well I dropped before the pull.

used to be that the warloc was the one hovering just above death in a raid.

if your role is DPS, you should be equal. there is no hybrids anymore. so there should be no hybrid tax.

With dual specs and gear sharing, I completely disagree. I can literally swap from a resto healer to boomkin DPS, do a quick reforge to shed some extra spirit (thank you Mammoth), and now I'm a near fully geared DPS without having to level, rep up, gear up, or even leave the instance to play a new role. And we aren't even talking about the druid talents that allow a literal role transition mid fight, or playing pinch hitter when a healer goes down/dps in low damage phases. I can have two roles just by virtue of having the one.

A pure class can't. They must maintain a healing alt if they want to play that role or if their guild needs them to shift out. That's a loss, and I'd like to see their DPS above the hybrids as compensation.

absolutely. there should be some advantage to a pure dps,heal, or even tank class if they ever put one out in performing their limited function.

i honestly feel that it would be a much better world if ALL classes had a niche instead of the homogenized mass of what we are slowly devolving to.

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used to be that the warloc was the one hovering just above death in a raid.

They may have more survial tactics than they used to sure - so do most classes, but they always had ways to heal themselves. Maybe bad ones who were lifetapping at bad times were the ones dying.

Back when the hybrid tax WAS a thing, yes, pure classes had much fewer self heals and ways to survive through damage, but after they added arena and started making hybrid DPS speccs actually worthwhile, they added more utility and survivability to pure classes to compensate. The ones that were left behind without self heals were actually hunters.

A pure class can't. They must maintain a healing alt if they want to play that role or if their guild needs them to shift out. That's a loss, and I'd like to see their DPS above the hybrids as compensation.

In contrast, pure's can adapt per-fight by changing specs, most hybrids can't. You make the choice to be purely a damage dealer if you go for a pure, same as you make the choice to have options as a Hybrid. There shouldn't be any compensation.

"Reason is not automatic. Those who deny it cannot be conquered by it." - Ayn Rand

They may have more survial tactics than they used to sure - so do most classes, but they always had ways to heal themselves. Maybe bad ones who were lifetapping at bad times were the ones dying.

Back when the hybrid tax WAS a thing, yes, pure classes had much fewer self heals and ways to survive through damage, but after they added arena and started making hybrid DPS speccs actually worthwhile, they added more utility and survivability to pure classes to compensate. The ones that were left behind without self heals were actually hunters.

i was actually referring as far back as b.c. when i first had a loc dip to almost dead and I said "wtf just hit him" when it was just him regaining mana and the healer being slow.

With dual specs and gear sharing, I completely disagree. I can literally swap from a resto healer to boomkin DPS, do a quick reforge to shed some extra spirit (thank you Mammoth), and now I'm a near fully geared DPS without having to level, rep up, gear up, or even leave the instance to play a new role. And we aren't even talking about the druid talents that allow a literal role transition mid fight, or playing pinch hitter when a healer goes down/dps in low damage phases. I can have two roles just by virtue of having the one.

A pure class can't. They must maintain a healing alt if they want to play that role or if their guild needs them to shift out. That's a loss, and I'd like to see their DPS above the hybrids as compensation.

You mean a pure class has the privilege of not having to go heals. I have a friend who plays a warlock, we used to raid together. He always refused to mainswap to his priest, even though he really liked shadow dps, because he didn't want to have to ever heal.

Let's look at it this way - you want to stack nothing but warlocks, rogues, hunters, and mages because the current hybrid classes don't have useable DPS speccs and can only be healers and tanks? Hybrids being able to DPS is necessary. If they weren't viable, then we'd only have four classes that could be DPS. Being holy/prot on my paladin was the roughest choices I ever played through. Not having the ability to DPS is far worse than not being able to tank or heal.

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Originally Posted by judgementofantonidas

i was actually referring as far back as b.c. when i first had a loc dip to almost dead and I said "wtf just hit him" when it was just him regaining mana and the healer being slow.

'as far back as'. I raided since MC and don't ever recall warlocks being the squishiest. I raided in TBC with four warlocks in the raid and they were all never in danger of dying. I think your buddy may have been bad.

'as far back as'. I raided since MC and don't ever recall warlocks being the squishiest. I raided in TBC with four warlocks in the raid and they were all never in danger of dying. I think your buddy may have been bad.

yep. sure. there is no reason why blizz added soul tap protection some time back.

yep. sure. there is no reason why blizz added soul tap protection some time back.

It's "Life Tap," and I already said that only bad warlocks died due to life tapping at bad times. If you need protection from life tapping yourself to death, then you are bad. Just like the shadow priests who killed themselves with shadow word: death. That's bad playing, doesn't mean the class is bad.

For example, our warlocks and healers constantly communicated when they could/would life tap, so that the healers could heal/shield them. That's good playing.

Heres the thing when talking about 25man raiding dps normally are just dps hybrid or pure. But in 10m its a whole different ballgame, hybrids ability to switch roles goes to much more use there and what utility you bring matters a lot.

While making all pures hybrids probably will never happen they should make sure that pures make up for their lack of flexibility with more utility than hybrids.

You mean a pure class has the privilege of not having to go heals. I have a friend who plays a warlock, we used to raid together. He always refused to mainswap to his priest, even though he really liked shadow dps, because he didn't want to have to ever heal.

Let's look at it this way - you want to stack nothing but warlocks, rogues, hunters, and mages because the current hybrid classes don't have useable DPS speccs and can only be healers and tanks? Hybrids being able to DPS is necessary. If they weren't viable, then we'd only have four classes that could be DPS. Being holy/prot on my paladin was the roughest choices I ever played through. Not having the ability to DPS is far worse than not being able to tank or heal.

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'as far back as'. I raided since MC and don't ever recall warlocks being the squishiest. I raided in TBC with four warlocks in the raid and they were all never in danger of dying. I think your buddy may have been bad.

The raids that are going to stack classes already do. Our raids stack hybrids. We run multiple 10s and have members jumping between them based on the roles needed and desire to play said roles that week. The draw of flexibility and the alt-unfriendliness of pandara have shown our guild members abandoning their pures.

As for the DPS claim, I think it's overstated. Look at TBC for a case of hybrids and pures working out.

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One more point. I never use the enhance spec on my shaman. If my guild asked me to, I'd say no thanks. I'd argue that all four pures should have a secondary healing or tanking spec. They can choose to use them or not, but at least it would bring them up to the flexibility of the others.

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Just like the shadow priests who killed themselves with shadow word: death.

Almost a rite of passage on prince. I loved SWing myself when a wipe was called. No repair bill. Not that it matters now, but it had it's purpose.

There is no such thing as a "pure" class any more. Every class has self healing and/or damage mitigation cooldowns. Hunters, for example, have Deterrence. Warlocks have numerous self heals and damage mitigators. Mages have glyphed Evocation and/or Incanter's Ward. Self-heals for traditional "hybrid" classes like Paladin either perform too poorly to be effective or are subject to the same cooldowns as the ones applied to the traditionally "pure" classes. This was all done in the name of balance. This is why you can't have good PvP in a PvE game or good PvE in a PvP game. When you try to accommodate both you wind up with a lackluster game.

I disagree a little. If you are able to offheal, and do the same dps vs someone who can just do dps, its not exactly a fair deal. Unless you give the pure dps some other utility that would be as good as being able to at least self heal. of course I play a lock, so i shouldnt be talking, but I dunno, if you sing the make everyone equal tune, hybrids having that healing capability is anything but equal.

The thing is, if you stop dpsing to heal, you are no longer doing the same amount of dps as someone who stays solely on dpsing. If you are in a dps spec, you should be able to do comparable damage to anyone else in a dps spec. The trade-off lies if you have to stop and spot heal or take over some tanking duties.

The raids that are going to stack classes already do. Our raids stack hybrids. We run multiple 10s and have members jumping between them based on the roles needed and desire to play said roles that week. The draw of flexibility and the alt-unfriendliness of pandara have shown our guild members abandoning their pures.

As for the DPS claim, I think it's overstated. Look at TBC for a case of hybrids and pures working out.

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One more point. I never use the enhance spec on my shaman. If my guild asked me to, I'd say no thanks. I'd argue that all four pures should have a secondary healing or tanking spec. They can choose to use them or not, but at least it would bring them up to the flexibility of the others.

It wasn't about whether or not raids WOULD stack, we all know they do. The idea I was conveying is that hyrbids being able to DPS is more or less necessary for gameplay and raiding. It's harder to be a class that can only heal or tank than one that can heal and dps or tank and dps. You would have a game with 10 classes that would require a vast majority of people to only play one of four of them, or be unable to raid. Tank and healer slots are fewer in number than dps slots.

When I was holy/prot on my paladin during WotLK (he was an alt), I wouldn't be able to even go on alt runs or join some heroic groups with my guild on him because they didn't need a tank or a healer. I would be gimping them by going and forcing a main healer or main tank to use a DPS offspecc just so I could go, rather than just being able to go ret and be dps.

It's all well and good to say "I politely decline playing a dps specc on my main," but there are other people who are willing to go dps on their main healer/tank class when it's needed. What you don't have is the choice to say "oh, no, that's okay, I don't want to go tank," when the raid needs a tank. You're going tank or the raid is being called and it will be all your fault.

I've been playing my druid since vanilla. I know all about the history of hybrids and pures. I've been there for it all and I've wasted plenty of time on these forums and others explaining why it's necessary for hyrbid dps to be viable in raids. Before WotLK when I was holy/prot on my paladin, I was ret in TBC. I outdpsed plenty of bads as a "non-viable" specc and was thrown out of many others due to ignorance in the fact that I was completely capable of pulling my own weight in the group. I was balance in the beginning of TBC and for the end of it, and I pulled my weight there, too. Hybrid dps hasn't only just become viable in the past few years, it's been usable by good players for quite awhile, but for some reason these stupid arguments bad stigmas linger.